Legendary footballer George Best played for both the Northern Irish team and for seminal UK team Manchester United. Photo credit
Divided football
Football lags behind other Irish sport in its refusal to unify its separate Northern and Republic teams.
On Monday a decision to allow Northern Irish players to play for the Republic was passed, following on from last year when former Northern Ireland international and Aston Villa coach, Martin O'Neill, called for Ireland to play as a united island, adding his voice to prominent Northern Irish stars Pat Jennings and George Best.
In rugby, Ireland plays as a united island, with players drawn from both northern and southern counties. Not without reason, on its own Northern Ireland would not be able to field a competitive team and the Republic's team would also be severely weakened. With both the Northern Ireland and Republic football teams struggling on the world stage, now would surely be the time to move forward and unify this last remaining bastion of sectarian division in sport.
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) originally ruled that Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were two separate countries each with their own traditions and cultures and thus should have separate teams. That would mean that the normal rules of selection would apply. In order to play for a country, a player would have to demonstrate a valid connection with the territory, either through residence or ancestry.
However, in 2007, Darron Gibson, a Northern Irishman, was selected for their international squad but opted to play for the Republic instead, sparking a debate over the specifics of the Irish situation.
 Photo credit: Mick Fealty |
On Monday, FIFA reversed its original decision, now declaring that Northern Irish born players can play for the Republic of Ireland. This struck the Belfast based Irish Football Association (IFA) a heavy blow. With FIFA's support of the Dublin based Football Association of Ireland (FAI), one of the barriers to a unified team has been removed. FIFA's decision to allow Northern Irish players to play for the Republic is based on the Good Friday Agreement, which states that Irish citizenship is the birthright of any person born on the island if they so wish.
As to why football remains the only international team sport played as separate Northern and Republic teams, opinion remains divided.
One argument is the entrenched bureaucracy. With the IFA and FAI opposing each other tooth and nail over each decision, a mutual arrangement is hard to come by. The FIFA arrangement to allow Northern Irish to play for the Republic could be viewed as one of the barriers being overcome. However, the decision is likely to get the IFA's back up and make their fight to maintain an independent team all the longer and more strident.
The reasons why football remains the victim of sectarianism are as complicated as the origins of The Troubles: It is a complicated combination of class and religion. The fight is not exactly Protestant versus Catholic, nor is it entirely a working class problem but if you ask rugby fans such as Ross McCarroll, a patron at Portrush's Harbour Bar, why football is still played as a two team sport he'd tell you, "It's a class thing. You never see a middle class person caring about someone's religion".
"To put it succinctly," said another patron of the bar, "it's because they are chavs".
